The King Salmonids in Splatoon 3's Salmon Rub mode are easily the biggest threat to your health in the game. Cohozuna, in particular, towers over everyone and everything and can wipe your team if you are not careful. Here is how to fight and beat King Salmonid Cohozuna in Salmon Run in Splatoon 3.
Related: How to play Salmon Run in Splatoon 3 - tips and strategies
When Cohozuna comes into the field, the first thing you should always remember is to keep as much distance from him as possible while still being able to hit him with your fire. Unfortunately, nearly every weapon in Splatoon 3 requires you to be somewhat close range to hit him. Just always try and have an exit strategy if you need to run away quickly. Be sure not to corner yourself, and don't let smaller enemies box you in.
Speaking of smaller enemies, multiple Boss Salmonids will spawn into the game while Cohozuna is in play. While you may want to focus fully on him, we recommend focusing your fire on these guys and taking them down as fast as possible. They will drop Golden Eggs like in other rounds, but instead of throwing them in a basket, you can throw them at Cohozuna to deal a lot of damage. Do this as much and quickly as possible.
Besides the eggs, you just need to focus on damaging Cohozuna, running when needed, and taking out smaller enemies that run up on you. Hopefully, you were able to save at least one of your special moves for this fight, so use it now if you still have it. When he leaps into the air, watch out for the ring that denotes where he will land and get outside of it.
Always keep an eye on your ink tank, and try to help teammates up as fast as possible when they go down. Because of the time limit during this fight, just one member going down can significantly impact your chances of bringing him down in time. Keep all of your fire on him, and you should be able to deplete his health before time runs out.
As of this writing, it doesn't seem that there is a large reward for actually defeating King Salmonid Cohozuna. We lost one match and won one against him, and the only difference we had was we gained a couple more Bronze Fish Scales in our post-game summary. We will update this article if we find out any more information about the rewards.